About four in every 10 Colorado households, including many middle-class families, are living so close to the edge that they lack the reserves to survive three months in a financial emergency, according to the 2014 Asset & Opportunity Scorecard from the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED).

“A lot of people don’t know they fall into the ‘at-risk’ category,” said Josiah Masingale, executive director of the Colorado Community Action Association, which works with CFED locally.

About 12.6 percent of the state’s households live at or below the poverty line, defined as an annual income of $23,550 or less for a family of four.

But how many Colorado households could cover three months of poverty-level living expenses if their income evaporated — say, because of a job loss or health problems?

Just less than one of every four households, 23.9 percent to be precise, could sell everything they own, net out the debt and still not have enough to make it, said Kasey Wiedrich, one of the study’s authors.

“This is not maintaining their current level of consumption but getting by at the federal poverty level,” Wiedrich said.

Given that most people need a car to drive and a home to live in, a more realistic measure is to look at what “liquid” assets, including savings and retirement accounts, they have available to tap.

The group estimates that 39.2 percent of households in the state are “liquid-asset poor.”

Colorado has the 17th-lowest liquid-asset poverty rate among states, and an improving economy has pushed the share of households at risk down from 45.8 percent in last year’s survey.

But one of the report’s most disturbing findings is that nearly one of every five middle-class households with incomes of $68,929 to $101,436 haven’t set enough aside to survive an extended emergency.

Masingale said more needs to be done to reach those households that are in a position to protect themselves but don’t realize how vulnerable they are.

CFED looked at a broad range of measures from how readily people form businesses to health-insurance coverage, to determine financial vulnerability in each state.

Colorado gets high scores on entrepreneurship, education levels and access to banking services. It scores poorly for housing affordability, bankruptcies and the share of low-income residents without health insurance.

Financial security

Income povertyShare of Colorado households: 12.6% Rank among states: 20

Aldo Svaldi has worked at The Denver Post since 2000. His coverage areas have included residential real estate, economic development and the Colorado economy. He's also worked for Financial Times Energy, the Denver Business Journal and Arab News.

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